Hi Bassey, yes they do, the Mitac Asomething, not sure of the model name, but a friend I keep in contact with has bought one. Not seen it in the flesh though!

Jim, a couple of questions:

- How long did it take you to get a satnav first fix?
- Did the SiRF chip get a lock indoors?
- How on earth did you manage to link the SP5 to it to get mail? I keep getting asked for a phone number to dial!

I must admit the device is lightning fast, and very lightweight - been a complete pleasure using it at work today!

The Exec feels like a right slug in compared to it!

I can confirm as well that the TM ROM applet for configuring the soft keys works a treat!

Hi Daron,

The Sat-Nav took quite a while on first lock. And does take a while from a cold start, I didn't actually time it.

*99# is what I have in the dial string for the Bluetooth modem connection I created in the Connections tab.

The comparison to the Exec is spot on, the N560 really flies, and with the excellent screen, it really is a nice piece of kit. I'm talking myself into buying one here...

Right the *99# was what I was forgetting I assume that one just puts in the normal O2 logon data in the credentials section?

Still amazed at the speed - PI really flies now compared to how it was on the Exec!

Will probably do a bit of driving later so will see how the sat nav goes!

Yeah, the credentials go in the connection entry that you've setup on the IQ, so no issue there I would think, I certainly didn't need to enter any on the Loox when I had it.

Now you've got one, it's made me wish I had bought the N560 to use with the SP5m, but, the PE devices do have the edge with 'as items arrive', but, but...

Oh dear, time for more overtime!

Yeah I agree with that philosophy myself, I love the always on connectivity. But for me at the moment the speed of the LOOX is telling.

Plus it was nice it a way to go out for a meal with Aly and not to have to worry about mail coming in, it was almost like being on holiday!

Well the saga of the LOOK N560 continues......

GPS Fix Times

Still lousy, bit I've applied a hack which increases the connection speed from 9600 baud to 57600 so hunt times are improved. It is still somewhat spotty though. A few minutes ago I tried to get a lock in the back garden, waited 6 minutes - nothing. Whereas this morning I went out there and got a strong lock within 30 seconds!

This is probably not helped by the fact that the GPS cache data is deleted after a soft reset which means that the 'cold factory' lock has to be regained after a soft reset - not good news.

E2C Connectivity

I had terrible problems using this to connect the LOOX N560 to my LAN, even though all settings were correct and the connection showed as live.

I found the solution though, FSC took the brilliant decision to include in the ROM version 3.02.06401 (build: 1125) which it turns out is not WM5 AKU2.0 compatible!

The FSC site states:

This is damned ridiculous and I can't believe FSC installed a duff version for the machine in ROM!

Note for reference against the next paragraph this updated version will load and install using the installer.

E2C Purchasing

In the review Jim mentioned that he was surprised that E2C Pro had to be purchased. Yes it does, but with a full commercial package (which Jim may not have had) you get a voucher which can be redeemed for 5 points in the FC store.

In that store E2C can be redeemed for two points making it effectively free. Thats the good news.

E2C Installing

The bad news is that once you've bought it and downloaded the installer it will not load on the machine!

This problem is evidently known as shown by this thread on the FSC forums. Needless to say I've raised a Support Ticket and we'll see if I do get the file needed to get the application loaded and registered.

It looks like to resolve the issue one has to load the updated version from FSC and then use the unlock file which hopefully Support will send to me.

We'll have to see how it goes!

E2C Should it be used?

Even though Jim had no problems with E2C during the review, and I had endless problems, it seems that a lot of folks will not touch it at all, as can be seen on this thread on FirstLOOX.org. That clearly recommends using the standard WM applet - which I must admit for me is working so far.

General

Apart from the niggles and annoyances listed so far the N560 is scoring because:

It is lightning fast - at least twice the speed of the Exec.
Incredibly light in weight and small in form, I cna now go back to using my small Vega holster
Screen is way beautiful and great for reading eBooks
As it is not a Phone Edition device theare is not the great number of processes running which means I can run WBA2, Journal Bar, etc alongside PBreeze.

So mixed pickings so far!

Hi Daron,

A great number of updates there. The really strange thing is, I never really had any problems with the GPS lock, even after a soft reset. Could it be I was just lucky? A few times it took a long time to lock, but not consistently.

Regarding the E2C connectivity, as mentioned in the review, I had a quick play, and left it and went back to the usual way via WM5s built in connectivity tools.

Bloody good news on the purchasing aspects though, I found it incredibly strange that you'd have to register and pay for a pretty fundemental piece of software.

The more you mention the screen and the lightweight, the more I miss it, with the BT keyboard this is quite a combination!!

Definitely sounds like you were lucky over the GPS lock, mind you I tested it out tonight in the middle of the most terrible thunder storms and it locked after about 2 minutes and kept the lock solid.

So it may just be the trees around teh garden causing problems. Will see how it performs on the morrow going to work!

Right so you avoided the use of E2C - probably for the best from what I've read. The standard system certainly seems to work for me! I have noticed the machine gets hot if WiFi is used for an extended period though which is a bit worrying!

Yeah the voucher came in very useful, bought E2C, 3d Yahtzee which is uber cool and a few GPS apps, most of which are not too good! More experimentation to follow!

Jim - question ref your review machine...

Which, if any task closers did you use when running it?

Asking as since I dropped using WBA2 I've not had one problem so far tonight wih failing GPS locks.

Just interested to see what you used.